I get home from work around 6:15 yesterday. There is still a nice chunk of the Daytona 500 left and the race is under caution. Cool, I can sit and watch the end of the race before dinner. As the cars come off pit road who is in the lead? Why only my favorite driver, Mark Martin, in his new 01 Ginn Racing Army car. Holy crap, Mark Martin is leading the Daytona 500 with less than thirty laps left? That's huge! It's a dream!
Since this is Daytona and they are racing with evil restrictor plates there was a wreck late in the race. Because of that we had to sit through a green/white/checkered finish which is essentially a two-lap shootout. On the final trek through the trioval on the front stretch Kevin Harvick was able to squeeze by Martin and get a win by less than half a car length. It was agony. Agony! All those years of watching Mark finish second to Gordon and Ironhead for the championship had set me up for a gloriously unexpected Daytona victory. It wasn't to be.
Not only did Mark not win the 500 but he lost to Harvick who is driving Earnhardt's old car. Once again, that former Goodwrench Chevy #3 finishes ahead of Mark Martin. It ain't fair.
The picture below is what I saw mocking me on the cover of the Charlotte Observer this morning when I went to drop "Departed" into the Big Red Box at the Harris Teeter. Sometimes being a Mark Martin fan feels like you're a Cubs fan.
The look on Mark's face right here pretty much mirrors how I was feeling when I watched him not come home with the win when he had the best chance he's ever had at winning the biggest race of the year
More of the agony
Of course, any race that features a car finishing it while sliding on its roof isn't a complete loss
I think it hurts a little less with the cars less dominate in the frame.
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